How To Workout With The Whole Family and Make It a Routine

Exercising and achieving fitness goals is difficult when you’re going at it alone. Everyone needs moral support, so why not get the whole family on board? But when kids are involved, this can be a little bit difficult. So here are a few tidbits of advice for reaching #fitnessgoals with the fam.

Routine

People say that habits are formed by repeating the same thing for 30 days. This may or may not be true, but it’s definitely something worth considering when you’re trying to get your family dialed into a workout regimen. If your goal is a group run, then get your family trotting around the neighborhood for as little as 15 minutes a day, everyday, for the month. Now with kids, convincing them to get up and run might be a little more difficult. You’ll probably need to offer up a reward, at least initially. They’ll thank you later though, we hope.

Home Gym

Buying a gym membership for each member of your family isn’t very cost effective. If you have the space, it’s much better to invest in a home gym. It doesn’t have to be particularly fancy, we’re talking about a treadmill, maybe a bench, and some dumbbells. Which leads us to our next exciting point…

TV workouts

Dumbbells are a great thing because of their portability. You can stand in front of the TV and do forearm curls whenever you’d like, and even try a P-90X every now and again. While you’re doing all that work, your children can do their own little workout beside you. The seriousness of their exercises will depend on their age, but it’s okay. The two big advantages here are that a) they’re moving around, and b) you’re spending time together. In fact, it’s better to introduce them to workouts when they’re really young because they’ll do it for life.

Have Fun

Believe it or not, working out can be fun. And it’s the fun part that will make your family want to continually do it. Sure the results are nice, but on those days when you’re unable to see the results, you need a little extra something to get you through it. For example, if you’re taking the crew out for a run, turn it into a race. Compare each others’ times from previous races and encourage each other to run a little bit faster each day.

Who said that working out has to be lame and boring? It can be fun, challenging, and enlightening. Most importantly, it can galvanize the family and help them achieve their fitness goals.